Paramount Buys the Free Press, Names Bari Weiss CBS News Chief

0:00As a top-performing advisor, you demand top-performing funds. That's why Fidelity's 1 ,000 experienced research professionals combine deep insights and advanced analytics to deliver consistent outcomes for clients across market cycles. Explore 300-plus Morningstar-rated 4 - and 5-star funds at i.fidelity.com slash top funds. Across all fund share classes of Fidelity, Fidelity Advisor Shares, and Fidelity ETFs as of 6-15-2026, past performance is no guarantee of future results. The thing about AI for business, it may not automatically fit the way your business works. At IBM, we've seen this firsthand.

0:38But by embedding AI across HR, IT, and procurement processes, we've reduced costs by millions, slash repetitive tasks, and freed thousands of hours for strategic work. Now we're helping companies get smarter by putting AI where it actually pays off, deep in the work that moves the business. Let's create smarter business, IBM. Healthcare doesn't always work great. If you've ever waited on a refill or couldn't schedule an appointment, you get it. That's the kind of stuff Optum is changing. They're using data and technology to integrate patient care, pharmacy, and everything else. So healthcare is connected, not complicated.

1:17What's that look like? Cheaper prescriptions that are easier to get and care that looks at the whole person, how you need it. Optum is helping make healthcare work as one for everyone. Learn more at business.optum.com. As industries evolve faster than ever, companies need an environment that accelerates strategic growth, and Michigan delivers on that promise. From emerging startups to global enterprises, Michigan offers what executives value most, a resilient, innovative ecosystem, diverse communities that attract top talent, and a quality of life that supports work-life balance. With our unified Team Michigan approach, businesses scale faster and compete at the highest level.

1:55Michigan, pure opportunity. Seize your opportunity at michiganbusiness.org. Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts, radio, news. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio. Paramount Skydance officially announced that it's acquiring the online news site The Free Press and naming founder Barry Weiss, editor-in-chief of CBS News. It's a move likely to stir controversy inside and outside. the venerable news organization. Weiss is 41 years old. She's going to report to Paramount CEO David Ellison. He's 42 years old. He's a film producer. He's the son of software billionaire Larry Ellison, who's one of the wealthiest people in the world.

2:38She will oversee the editorial direction of a news division whose programs include the prestigious 60 Minutes and CBS News Sunday Morning. For more, we bring in Katie Fallow. She's back with us. She's a deputy litigation director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. Her specialty is threats to free speech and a free press in the digital age. She joins us from New York. More consolidation within the media industry, a media industry that is already under lots of pressure, especially legacy media. But in this case, it's legacy media marrying an upstart news organization that started on Substack after Barry Weiss left the New York Times because she said she didn't have the freedom to essentially publish what she wanted.

3:19How do you look at a deal such as this in the context of everything happening when it comes to the First Amendment, Katie? Yeah, I think this the deal and the appointment of Barry Weiss to be the head of CBS News raises a number of questions about the media, media consolidation, free speech and the Trump administration, which I think you can't read out of the picture here. Standing on its own, the decision of Paramount, Skydance to acquire an upstart newsletter or to appoint a new person as the head of its news division, CBS News Division, on their own wouldn't necessarily be big news in my view, because as a private company, they have the right to acquire whatever news outlets they want and appoint whoever they want to be the head of their CBS flagship news program.

4:17However, I think you need to see this in the context of a number of moves that Paramount has made in the past year. And you have to see all of this in the context of the Trump administration. And I think what it it it raises the question of whether media companies are changing their news coverage in order to appease the Trump administration. All right. So are they? Well, I mean, I think, you know, if you take each individual fact, it maybe doesn't prove that. But I think if you see this recent move in light of Paramount's decision before the merger to settle what was plainly a frivolous lawsuit brought by President Trump based on the airing by 60 minutes of an edited version of its interview with Kamala Harris.

5:13And, you know, by all accounts, including by CBS News's accounts and their lawyers' accounts, this was a frivolous lawsuit that shouldn't have gone anywhere. And CBS had a very strong First Amendment argument to get the case dismissed. And but then Paramount went ahead and settled this after not just the lawsuit, but the Federal Communications Commission under Brendan Carr, Chairman Brendan Carr, was investigating this same airing of the Kamala Harris interview. So you have pressure coming to bear from both Trump personally and from the Federal Communications Commission. And I think it's been pretty widely reported that the understanding is that Paramount settled this case in order to get approval for its merger.

6:05And I think you can see the appointment of a well-known critic of at least some parts of the left, Barry Weiss, and taking that into coupled with the appointment of an ombudsman who is from a conservative think tank. Like, you know, you look look at all of those data points and it suggests that CBS is moving or Paramount is moving CBS in a different direction in order to either appease Trump or to not draw the ire of the Trump administration and its regulatory agencies. So, Kate, you know, Katie, we've talked about this, Tim and I, about kind of the fiduciary responsibility of anybody who runs a public entity.

6:53Right. So, you know, I kind of get some of this from that side or from that angle. Having said that, one of the things that I think we've talked about, certainly in our own newsroom or just among ourselves, is this idea of, you know, the White House has been very specific or out there that if they don't necessarily like a media organization, they will ban you. And so is it better in terms of protecting free speech or making sure that everybody can cover the White House that they play ball a little bit and maybe aren't as combative? Or are we in doing that, giving up what is such a core of America?

7:38And that is the right to freedom of speech and the free press to keep politicians accountable. Yeah, I mean, it's true that there may be tension between the fiduciary duty or the profit-seeking purpose of private companies or, you know, publicly held or whatever, just private corporations, which have one goal of, you know, maximizing profits versus free speech, which has the goal of ensuring that people are allowed to say what they want free from government interference. And as you mentioned, really critically, the role of the press in covering the government in a fair and accurate way without, you know, a thumb on the scale from government pressure.

8:30So I think those could be seen in tension with one another. On the other hand, I think that and that is something that just got 20 seconds, frankly. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Frankly, from the perspective of media consolidation, I think that could have a negative impact on free speech. And I think it's really important that companies and news outlets resist that pressure. All right, Katie, we know we will continue with you in the future. Katie Fallow, Deputy Litigation Director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, joining us here right on Bloomberg Businessweek Daily Monitoring, the White House.

9:10When you're running a business, the best days are the ones where priorities stay on track. For midsize and large companies, risk can affect multiple parts of the organization at once, from property and liability to cyber and regulatory challenges. At that level, managing risk becomes an ongoing discipline. At the Hartford, the focus is on helping businesses manage risk before it turns into something more disruptive. And when losses do happen, that work is paired with insurance coverage shaped by years of underwriting, risk engineering, and claims experience. Learn more at thehartford.com slash risk mitigation.

9:45Policies provided by Hartford Fire Insurance Company and its property and casualty affiliates, Hartford, Connecticut.

9:56it.

10:20As industries evolve faster than ever, companies need an environment that accelerates strategic growth. And Michigan delivers on that promise. From emerging startups to global enterprises, Michigan offers what executives value most. A resilient, innovative ecosystem. Diverse communities that attract top talent. And a quality of life that supports work-life balance. With our unified Team Michigan approach, businesses scale faster and compete at the highest level. Michigan. Pure opportunity. Seize your opportunity at michiganbusiness.org. Healthcare doesn't always work great. If you've ever waited on a refill or couldn't schedule an appointment, you get it.

10:57That's the kind of stuff Optum is changing. They're using data and technology to integrate patient care, pharmacy, and everything else. So healthcare is connected, not complicated. What's that look like? Cheaper prescriptions that are easier to get and care that looks at the whole person. How you need it. Optum is helping make healthcare work as one for everyone. Learn more at business.optum.com.